Saturday, January 28, 2012

If there were ever any doubt Noam Chomsky needs to shut up about economics, starting at about 4:20 he gets everything exactly backwards:

The man has no conception of market forces.

For example, Monstanto is out of the Bovine Growth Hormone business because

"Consumers have made it fairly clear they don't want milk from cows treated with the artificial hormone. At one point, more than 22 percent of U.S. cows were on the hormone. As of 2007, only 17 percent still were, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In recent years, major companies including Kraft Foods, Starbucks and Wal-Mart have announced decisions to sell only milk products from untreated cows. This 'will limit our future sales' admitted Monsanto." Scientific American

But Chomsky says corporations are more totalitarian than governments and people have no influence over them, but here are Monsanto, Kraft Foods, Starbucks and Wal-Mart caving to consumer pressure.

According to Gallop the majority of Americans were opposed to the War on Iraq since 2005, yet that war is being would down only because the Iraqi's would not grant legal immunity to US service personnel.

"For US military planners, legal immunity is a must for any American troops, not only those serving in Iraq as part of any training mission after 2011, but anywhere in the world. The Iraqi decision to revoke immunity puts the US in a position where it could withdraw all its troops out of Iraq, leaving no military support behind." Deutsche Welle

But Chomsky says if the state runs things people are able to influence them via voting and political action.

About Me

Puck T. Smith is the nom de plume of a man who wishes to live his life in peace and obscurity while at the same time sharing the insights he has acquired through both suffering and joy in more than half a century of living in this world of terrible tragedy, radiant beauty and dizzying possibilities.